[B-Greek] Machen Lesson 6, Exercise II.6

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Jan 28 06:16:05 EST 2006


On Jan 28, 2006, at 1:01 AM, Christopher Shelton wrote:

> To Anyone Who Might Know--
>      Machen asks one to translate into Koine Greek the following  
> expression:
>
> The good know the bad, and the bad the good.
>
>      I Lesson 6 Machen mentions that adjectives may be used  
> substantively, especially with the article.  However, I have a  
> question about to whom or to what the adjective "good," or "bad"  
> refers.  Is it "good people?"  And if it is, "good people," which  
> gender would it have?  Are all references to "people" necessarily  
> masculine (a million women and one man is still masculine)?  Or,  
> since the gender is unspecified, is the neuter gender used?  (So  
> far, Machen uses the neuter only for "things," indefinite objects;  
> but, can it include other inanimate, unspecified notions?)  Also,  
> what number is "the good?"  If it is "good people," (not "good  
> person") then it should be plural.  My transliterated guess is below:
>
> hOI AGAQOI GINWSKOUSI TOUS KAKOUS, KAI hOI KAKOI //GINWSKOUSI//TOUS  
> AGAQOUS.
>
> Thanking You In Advance,

I would understand "the bad" and "the good" here to mean "bad  
persons" and "good persons," since he's using the adjectives  
substantivally in English. In Greek one normally uses the masculine  
plural if "persons" is meant, but note that use of the masculine  
article does not imply that ONLY MALES are included; rather Greek  
ordinarily uses the masculine gender generically. Thus I would say  
your "transliterated guess" correctly conveys the sense of Machen's  
sentence. Technically speaking, you could have made it hAI AGAQOI ...  
TAS KAKAS and hAI KAKAI ... TAS AGAQAS, since the English sentence  
didn't specify gender; nevertheless, I would guess that he probably  
intended the sentence to involve the generic masculine plural, meant  
to include persons both male and female.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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